The Cigarette-Smoking Man (No 113): A BlacklistX-Files Crossover
by DavidB226Morris
Summary: Summary: Upon returning to the Task Force after being on the run for three months, Red sends Elizabeth after their most potentially dangerous adversary yet. One so deadly that they need special assistance in bringing him out. But not even Raymond Reddington suspected that their best hope was back in the FBI...or just how far this particular conspiracy would reach
1. Prologue

The Cigarette-Smoking Man (No. 113)

A Blacklist/X-Files Crossover

By DavidB226Morris

Summary: Upon returning to the Task Force after being on the run for three months, Red sends Elizabeth after their most potentially dangerous adversary yet. One so deadly that they need special assistance in bringing him out. But not even Raymond Reddington suspected that their best hope was back in the FBI...or just how far this particular conspiracy would reach

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully and all of those delightful characters that were part of the X-Files universe are the property of Chris Carter and the rest of those diligent workers at Ten-Thirteen Productions. Elizabeth Keene, Raymond Reddington, and all of those who work in the world of _The Blacklist_ are the property of Jon Bonnenkamp and the rest of the crew. I am just a humble scribe who wants to play with them for awhile.

Author's Note: In comparison with the last couple of fictions I've written, the timeline's fairly easy to keep track of. This takes place in the middle of Season 3 of _The Blacklist,_ after Red negotiated Elizabeth's freedom, but before she learned she was pregnant. This takes place just after the X-Files revival began - Mulder and Scully have been reinstated, but have yet to begin fully investigating cases again. And there is no connection to any of my previous fanfiction that featured Mulder and Scully in the _24/Alias_ universe - this is an entirely new and different animal.

Rating: This is going to me mainly a 'T' level story. There's going to be stronger language than we were used to seeing on either show, and there's going to be a certain level of violence, but really, nothing that shouldn't turn the hairs of anyone.

All right. Let's get this party started.

PROLOGUE

WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

4:31 P.M.

To the typical observer, like the adolescents who had been watching them run for generations, it would seem like nothing had changed. The Eastern line from Philadelphia to Allentown for the twentieth century was still making its runs through the cities and rural locations throughout the town.

The parents still pointed to their children when the crosswalk came down, and the train passed by. The conductor still came out at every stop to wave at the passerby. It seemed like something out of an earlier era - where everybody knew their neighbor, when you didn't have to lock your doors at night, when Starbucks was known as the first mate of a Herman Melville novel.

And as far as the children and their parents and the passengers and even the conductors and engineers knew, that's all the railroad did. There was nothing any more sinister about it than a game of tag or the Muppets. And if the train occasionally picked up a boxcar that didn't have a shipping label, it was just a clerical error.

Why should they? The only people who had known about it had been a consortium who had all disappeared or died in February of 1999. The companies had been shut down. The people involved were all dead or gone, and almost no one had known who they were before or after their horrible deaths. And even if people had worried about the consequences of that, so what? The date had passed, and nothing had happened.

Things were normal.

Yeah, right.

The train _had come_ to its final stop an hour earlier. As had become routine, the trains final boxcar was released by the engineer in/to a yard nearly ten miles away from the nearest city.

The trainyard hadn't been used since 2001, another victim of a series of cuts to the infrastructure was the excuse given,_frankly, so few people had worked at this yard even at its peak that no one complained when it happened.

It [stood deserted for a very long some reason, no one bothered to tear it down or sell the metal for scrap. It just stood there, a metal graveyard to an earlier era though again, almost nobody knew just what era had been a key part of it. And no one seemed to know why there were still some fairly high level security cameras still around the entire trainyard.

Someone had wanted it there, just in case.

In 2009, a biotech company known as Roush Pharmaceuticals had been one of the more obscure companies that the United States Government had considered 'too big to fail'. Of all the companies that Congress had debated giving a bailout to in that horrible period, they had devoted the least amount of floor debate to this one. The cynics in the media said it was because of the number of lobbyists that had been former members of Congress. They didn't know that the real reason this had been the only company that every member of the finance committee knew had to survive even if the country was plunged into another Great Depression, or that every nation on the UN Security Council had been pledged to finance even at all cost.. The ones who were still left knew that there were bigger problems than if the world economy fell apart.

So Roush had gotten its money. And one of the first things that it had done was invest a huge amount in infrastructure. Again, there were bigger concerns as to why a biotech company would want to buy dozens of trainyards across the country. A very few people knew that there were no bigger concerns, but they sure as hell weren't the kind of people who would comment to the New York Times.

And one of those people was waiting at the trainyard at 11:45 P.M. a few hours after the boxcar had been let out. But he sure as hell wasn't going to tell anybody about that. He knew that the only reason he was being entrusted with this particular mission was because he was one of the few members of this group who, by pure chance, was still alive. There wasn't much in the way of a retirement plan for this project.

The only way you left was if you got a bullet in the brain. And that was one of the more pleasant ways to go. In fact, he had ]nearly left the world because of a very important mission regarding some 'stolen property' that he had been charged with getting/retrieving. Even now, nearly eighteen years after the fact, he couldn't clearly figure out how he managed to lose that property, and managed to keep his job. The people he worked for didn't tolerate failures. (They didn't tolerate success sometimes, either, but that was beside the point.)

So now, here he was, fast approaching sixty, with very little to show it but a couple of scars, and his life. But then, considering the fates of many colleagues, he was more than willing to consider himself 'lucky'. Hell, people in his position might consider this job little more than busy-work. He was more than willing to consider it a good night's work.

Here they arrive din the large black limousine. One could lecture them on their being less conspicuous, even at this time of night, but then you had to consider who they were and how valuable they were to the who they were and how vital, facts had to be tolerated. Especially that so many of their allies [when it came to this area] of the work were increasingly harder to come by.

For one thing, the man who emerged from the car was one of their prize projects a middle-aged Belarusian expatriate who had been one of the few who'd apprenticed at the Soviet doctors when they had been at the height of their powers. Twenty years ago, they wouldn't have even let him get a glimpse of what they were doing. Now, he was one of their top specialists in his field. Though really, this is where you had to go to find anybody useful

"Mr. Garrett?"

Even though he was expected here, he was very surprised to hear his name being used. Most of the people associated with the Project never let their proper names be spoken even in private. It was as if to emphasize that there was no inner circle, that no one in this business trusted even the people they worked closest with. Then again, by the standards of their business, this man was a newcomer to the field.

"Dr. Wiegraf." Better to respond in kind. No need to make sure that anybody felt comfortable given the nature of the job.

"Is the merchandise ready?"

God, more code words. Everyone knew that they were doing this work for a higher purpose, but did they have to make everything they were discussing, even among themselves, sound so benign? Even the causal facilitation of what they were doing would qualify as a war crime... if, of course, you didn't keep in mind that the people responsible for these actions, were responsible for drafting those same laws.

And was he actually thinking about these things? He might be getting too old for field work.

"Right this way, Doctor."

As Wiegraf stepped out of the limousine, the remainder of his medical staff followed behind him. Unlike Wiegraf, they were either Chinese or Japanese. It didn't really matter that much - at least it should have mattered to Garrett. His job was simply to take the medical staff to the merchandise, and provide security. Though considering what he and his people might still be up against, the AK-47s they were carrying wouldn't provide much protection. This was not something you complained about if you wanted to stay active.

He walked over to the boxcar. The three men in fatigues saluted him, even though he held no real rank. That's what seniority got you.

"Usual protocols. Maintain surveillance. Anyone without authorization gets within two hundred feet, the use of lethal force is required. Assume positions."

The soldiers nodded, and without a word, went to the perimeter. The few, the proud, the quiet.

Garrett went to the optic scanner. That then authorized the keypad, where he punched in his individualized eleven-number code. The light went from red to green, and he opened it.

Inside, there they were - nine women, ranging in age from nineteen to thirty five. All of them were restrained, not that it was going to be necessary. Garrett didn't know what was used on the subjects to keep them immobilized, but in a decade of monitoring these session, he had never so much as heard a peep out of one of them. And considering what was going to be done...

He shook it off. Best to keep it compartmentalized.

"Go ahead." He told the doctors. "Do your work."

Garrett walked over to the security monitors. That was his one concession. He had to be here. That didn't mean that he wanted to be up close and personal.


	2. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

 **WASHINGTON, D.C.**

 **THREE DAYS LATER**

Elizabeth Keen found herself, as she had been doing for the last week, checking over her shoulder every ten feet she walked. Considering the level of her training, not to mention the ordeal she had been a part of for the last three months, one would 'have thought that she had reached a level of certainty when it came to whether or not someone was observing her or not. Hell, given what her 'job' "job" was and the company she had kept for the last two years, you one would've would have thought that she would have been making sure that every other person on the street wasn't already some kind of spy already.

But she had just gone through three months where she was one of the ten most wanted criminals in the country, accused of being the child of a Soviet spy, the woman who had murdered the Attorney General. That she had managed to escape from this epic manhunt - —one which had been led for much of the period by people she'd considered friends—and - almost completely restored to normal should have been a relief.

Then again, considering everything that happened over the last two years, it was frankly remarkable that she had even the faintest idea of what 'normal' "normal" was supposed to represent. She had learned that the government she had sworn to protect was actually really under the machinations of a group of individuals that she knew only as 'The "The Cabal'Cabal";, so entrenched in the halls of power, that neither she nor anyone she knew was willing to trust the government they worked for. The man that she had married had been revealed to be the darkest of criminals, a complete and utter liar about everything she had known about him. Frankly, even she didn't know what was more astounding about her relationship with Tom: the fact that she had held him prisoner for more than three months, unwilling to admit he was in her custody, ; or the fact that not only had they fallen in love again, and that they were now back to living in her apartment together.

And then there was the elephant to end all elephants: Raymond 'Red' "Red" Reddington, the 'Concierge "Concierge of Crime'Crime", the man who had been responsible for the task force that had been founded two years earlier, the man who had either destroyed her life or opened her eyes, depending on how you looked at it. And considering everything that had happened, particularly in the last three months, she always went to whatever meeting he sent her own, with a level of trepidation that would have paralyzed your the average Navy SEAL. Even gGiven everything that had happened over the last couple of years, she still didn't know how to define her relationship with the man who had changed her life. Every day, a part of her wished that Reddington had just left her the hell alone, left her to live a life where she and Tom were happily married, and she was about to become a mother. But if she were completely honest with herself, trying to hold on to that idea of her life, was becoming more and more difficult with each successive meeting. She didn't know whether to be grateful or horrified.

As was almost always the case when she met with Reddington, he had called for the meeting in a completely different location than all the others. Considering he'd been off the grid for more than a quarter of a century when before he'd shown up at the FBI's doorstep, it was rather remarkable that Reddington knew D.C. better than she did. This time, it was an Irish Pub called McLarney's.

Less than a minute after she arrived at the front door, a man in his early fifties turned up, and said: ""Mr. Reddington's waiting for you."."

 _How does he know this one?_ she found herself thinking. Some part of her, even after all this time, thought that it was better not to know.

In the back of the restaurant— - there were no other customers, of course— - Reddington was engaged in a fairly fairly-active conversation with a man who had to be at least eighty-five at least.

"Jamie's nine, Richard is seven, and Sara, the baby, she just turned four," the old man was telling Reddington. "But I have to tell you, Raymond, I don't get these kids at all. The other day, Richard said he wanted a cell phone. I asked him why. He said, because Jamie's got one." He shook his head. "What's a seven-year year-old need a minutes plan for?"

"If you want my opinion, Carl, it's all gone to hell since AT&T split up," Red was saying. "They may have violated every principal of the Antitrust actAct, but at least there wasn't all this competition."

"My great-grandkids are getting cell phones before I did," ." Carl shook his head. "I guess this is what I stormed Normandy for." He looked up and saw Liz. "I'm guessing this is your lady-friend."

"I should be so lucky," Red turned to Carl. "I'm sorry I have to keep you busy during the lunch rush. I'll try to keep it to less than half an hour."

Carl got to his feet slowly, took a brief look at Liz again, then walked away.

"Carl's platoon was one of the first on the ground at Iwo Jima," Reddington said. "When we started referring to them as the Greatest Generation, in a way we were right. The men and woman who served during the Second World War really may have done something truly noble. A triumph of the human spirit. But when we started writing the book on the era, it's a good thing that all of the politicians of that time were long dead. Wouldn't have made things look nearly as pretty."

There was something in Reddington's tone of cynicism that Liz just didn't recognize. It took her a moment to place it. There was some kind of genuine regret there somewhere. She filed it away for later

"History quiz, ElizabethLizzie. What was Operation: Paper Clip?"

Liz searched her mind memory for a moment. "If I remember correctly, it was the devil's deal bargain with the devil we made with German scientists after World War II. We issued pardons for some of the worst Nazis in the world so we could win the space race with the Soviets."

"Slightly less well well-known was a deal that we made with the Japanese involving a unit known simply as 731," Reddington said. "Scientist who engaged in horrific experiments on in Chinese prison camps, torturing twins, gassing women and children. Some of the things they did turned my stomach, and you know the things I'm capable of."

"I'm guessing these men conducted experiments on American soil long after they were granted amnesty."

"In 1973, the U.S. government announced that it was causing a cessation on biological and chemical testing on humans. Need I even mention the size of the lie?" Reddington seemed a little sicker than usual. "Those same experiments were supervised by a group of men that wouldn't even give me the time of day to join them. But you know what Groucho said about being 'part of a club that would have me as a member'."

"I take it you found a way in," Liz said.

"I never got the chance. In February of 1999, the majoritymost of these men and their families died in a mass conflagration at El Rico Air Force Base. Somehow, they were burned beyond recognition, using weapons that had no record of being on ain an military base."

"Did the Cabal have them killed?"

"The Cabal never even knew they existed." Reddington shook his head. "Which isn't that surprising, considering that according to all available sources, they pre-dated the majoritymany of the members by nearly forty years. But for all intents and purposes, this alliance of people that had been responsible for far more evils than even the Nazis were capable of were exterminated that night."

"I'm guessing you're here to tell me that's not exactly true." It didn't take this long for Reddington to get the point most of the time.

"In all honesty, I should've put your next Blacklister earlier further up on your list of priorities." Reddington told her. "But I'd been told by very reliable sources that the man had been eliminated in 2002. Even if he hadn't been, conservative estimates would put him at age 88, which would make him as much of a threat as Carl there." He shook his head. "I had to confirm with a couple of reliable sources that he had gone back to his old line of work. Good men who, like so many others I'm associated with, are now gone."

"Who is he? What does he do?"

"He's called the Cigarette-Smoking Man. I guess not even cancer wants anything to do with him. And what he does is a subject of severe debate among the few fringe elements that even have a clue that he is alive. What I _can_ tell you, with a fair degree of certainty, is that he was the leader of that group I told you about, that same group that arranged the abduction of men and women, drilled holes in their sinuses and teeth, super-irradiated women in order to expose them to cancer. Extracted their ova in order to do... even I'm not certain what."

A shiver ran down Liz's spine. Even now, she was amazed to hear Reddington so casually discuss what amounted to war crimes in front of her, never mind that they'd been committed on American soil. "What in God's name are they doing it for?"

"I know at times I must seem omniscient, omnipotent even, but this is one of the rare cases where the answers are beyond my knowledge. All I can do is give theorize theories based on what I know from other sources. And there is no consensus." Reddington shook his head. "Some theorize that it's part of a military project to build a better soldier. Some Others say it's a form of rendition over some of America's more dangerous citizenry. And some— - a fringe group among even the fringe groups— - theorize that it's part of a bigger deal plan to prepare us for an alien invasion."

Of all the bizarre things she had heard Raymond Reddington say over the years, this last one took the cake. "You don't honestly believe that."

For the first time since he'd started talking, Reddington gave a smile. "Of course not. That would be absurd. But whatever his reasons, these experiments, which stopped for a brief period after the mass incineration, have been going on for nearly a decade. And this man, though nothing directly connects him to any of this, is responsible for all of it. Including the death of his own wife."

"So how do I find this man?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea. But I do know of a place to start, and for once, it's a lot simpler than the usual rabbit holes I have you go diving downinto. All you have to do is go back to the FBI." Reddington hesitated. "Are you familiar with a division known as the X-Files?"

"It's a division in the Bureau that deals with unsolved cases," ." That had been something that Liz had been taught when she had joined the Bureau. But there was something else... something that wasn't coming to her.

"It's a division for cases that have been _designated_ unsolved." Reddington corrected. "There's a world of difference with that added word, as you know."

"And those files will lead us to this Smoking Man?"

"I have no doubt he's in them. But in this case, the X-Files will give you the people who know far more about him than I could ever tell you."

FBI TASK FORCE

Usually when Liz Keene told briefed the people on the Task Force assigned to finding the Blacklisters, she knew far more about them after doing a fair amount of legwork. This time, however, she was surprised— - slightly— - that Director Harold Cooper and Agent Donald Ressler knew far more about it then she did.

"The X-Files has been never been the most popular division in the Bureau," Cooper was saying. "It basically came to be considered a career-ender. And that was if you were unlucky enough to end up there. No one ever expected that someone would volunteer to open them."

"Until 1991. Fox Mulder." Aram Mojtabai, their resident computer expert, put a slide on the screen. It was an FBI Badge, circa 1988. "One of the top profilers ever to come out of Quantico. He reopened the X-Files, and did the best he could to turn them into a real investigative force. Rather impressive, because for the time it was open, a total of six agents worked in the Division. Never more than two simultaneously, by the way."

"What was the X-Files' primary focus?" Keene asked.

Cooper and Ressler exchanged glances. "The main focus of the X-Files wasMainly cases with a supernatural or paranormal tendencies," Cooper finally said.

Liz wasn't sure how to handle thisthat. Samar Navabi, however, had no problem with it. "Are we talking about Dracula or Casper the Friendly Ghost?"

"Actually, from what their AD tells me, vampires and ghosts were frequent entries in the X-Files." The fact that Cooper was somehow managing managed to say all this with a straight face was the only reason Liz hadn't managed to burst into laughter.

"And that was by far the least ridiculous thing about it." Ressler told them. "Fox Mulder apparently pissed away a brilliant career, because he was convinced of two very key idealideass.: That eextraterrestrial life really existed, and that certain individuals within our government was involved in collaboration with them."

The laughter abruptly dried up in Liz's mouththroat. "How do you know about this? I thought the X-Files had been shut down before you came into the Bureau," she demanded of Ressler.

"It was," Ressler acknowledged. "But one of the last people who worked there was still in the Bureau when I came out of the Academy. John Doggett, ex-NYPD, ex-Marine. He was in charge of the division the last two years it of its existedexistence. Now, he wasn't the kind of man who believed in this kind of thing, and he would never confide that he believed in aliens, but those years, he saw things those years that he could never get out his head. Even though running it pretty much torpedoed his career, he never regretted that he worked on the X-Files."

"Is he still in the Bureau?" Samar also seemed determined to give this a little bit more consideration.

"He's in charge of the Anti-Terrorist task Task force Force out in North Dakota, according to the records," Aram told them.

"He literally got handed a shit detail," Ressler told him. "Telling you, we'd better tread lightly?'."

Liz considered this for a moment. "Who else was in the Division?"

"Aside from Mulder, the agent who worked on it was Dana Scully. In 1993, she was assigned to essentially reign Mulder in. The private consensus was that she was there to debunk his work." Ressler told them.

"In actualityS, she was probably his most prominent defender, as it turns out," Cooper told them. "Even though she believed primarily in hard science, over her nine years at the Division, she became convinced that were things outside the realms of science, and that the majoritymost of Mulder's work was valid."

Samar looked at the picture of Scully. "Was she sleeping with him?" she asked bluntly.

That seemed like a blunt, brutal thing to say. But Cooper decided to be just asequally blunt. "The rumors began almost as soon as they started working together. I suppose, given everything that happened, they showed an immense amount of restraint. Around the spring of 2000, they began an affair. About a year later, she had a child, which she eventually admitted was his. It would have been enough to ruin them both of them, but by then they were both out of the Bureau."

There was clearly something that both Ressler and Cooper were holding back on. "What happened?" Liz demanded.

"Fox Mulder spent most of his career chasing UFOs." ," Cooper told themreplied. "In the end, he found what he wanted. Around November 2000, Fox Mulder disappeared off the face of the earth."

The implication was clear. "You're not saying that he was abducted by aliens?" Liz wasn't willing to agree to this.

"His boss was AD Walter Skinner. And he saw it happen. He was more than willing to go on record, but Agent Scully talked him out of it." Cooper Cooper's indicated aid it as ifthat he wasn't sure he believed it.

"You can't be serious," ." Samar clearly wasn't there, either.

"Doggett was put in charge of the 'manhunt' to find the missing agent." Ressler told them. "That's how he got dragged into the X-Files in the first place."

"Manhunt. Like what they were doing for me," ." Liz was not happy.

"Oh, it gets better." ," Ressler said sardonically. "They found Fox Mulder. Three months later. Dead in a field. Whoever had him did a such a number on him, I'm not sure Al-Qaeda would've been able to pull off."

"You told us Mulder was drummed out of the Bureau. How could they do that if he was dead?" Samar was sounding as skeptical as Liz felt.

"He got better." Cooper told them. "Three months _after_ that, they dug him up. A week later, he was conscious." Cooper told them.

"That's not possible." Liz stated the obvious. "There has to have been some kind of mistake."

"Skinner attended the funeral," Cooper said bluntly.

"Doggett was there when he woke up." ," Ressler said, just as bluntly.

"Nobody bothered trying to explain this?" Samar told askedthem.

"They finally had a valid reason to drum Mulder out of the Bureau," Cooper said. "By then, he'd proven so much of a gadfly that no one cared anymore."

How much of this did Reddington know, ? Liz wondered. His knowledge of the minutiae of just about everything was eerie at times, but he hadn't even bothered to mention anybody working with the X-Files. "So, if Mulder was gone, and Agent Scully was pregnant, did anyone else work in the Division?" she asked instead.

"Monica Reyes." Aram put up the FBI ID of an attractive brunette. "She transferred in from the New Orleans Field Office, an expert in Satanic rituals. She was called in when the manhunt for Mulder was in its final stages. Seven months later, she was transferred to the X-Files. According to Skinner, she was the only one who actually considering it her dream posting."

"And one year later, the X-Files was dead." Ressler told them.

"Why? From everything you've told us, it's not like it was bothering anybody," Samar said.

"Mulder turned up in Mount Weather Army Bases. He was accused of murdering a military man named Knowle Rohrer." Cooper told them. "He was held before a military tribunal, and sentenced to death. The night before his scheduled execution, he was liberated from his facility, and went on the run. Scully and Mulder disappeared, and the X-Files was shut down. Doggett, Reyes, and Skinner stayed in the Bureau, but their careers were as dead as Mulder's."

It was a lot to take in— - too much really. So Liz tried to focus on the most important thing. "What about this Blacklister? This Cigarette-Smoking Man?"

"Therein hangs another tale," Cooper told them grimly. "Though no one ever had a name for him, that 'black-lunged son of a bitch', as Skinner cheerfully called him, was one of the major movers and shakers in the conspiracies that Mulder was primarily investigatinginvestigated."

"The kind of stuff that Reddington was talking about?" Samar was determined to take this seriously now.

"According to Mulder, he wouldn't have been surprised if he flipped the switch on JFK," Cooper told themadded. "Mulder spent the better part of seven years trying to figure out what he and a group of men known as 'The Consortium' were responsible for."

"The same group of men who died at El Rico?"

"According to Mulder, the Smoking Man was the only one who walked away without a scratch on him." Ressler told them grimly.

"We need to see those files," Liz walked turned her attentionover to Aram, looking over his shoulder at his computer. "Is there any way you can pull them up?"

"Not possible." Ressler said. "According to Doggett, all the years Mulder worked there, the files were never digitized. Shit, the whole time he worked there, the whole office was little more than a janitor's closet."

"And after the division was scuttled, the files were put in lockup." ," Cooper told themadded with genuine regret. "Mulder was the primary custodian of those files. My guess is, they've probably been gathering mold ever since they were shut down. "

"What about the agents? Any idea where Mulder and Scully are now?"

"The manhunt for them was called off in 2007." Ressler said. "Couple of agents called them in to investigate a case around that time, but they pretty much didn't've never renewed ties with the Bureau again."

"Maybe they've changed their minds," ." Aram, who'd been surprisingly quiet through most of this, was now looking at his computer screen with a fixed glance. "Take a look at this."

Liz walked over to the screen. And yet again, she found herself wondering how deep Reddington's ties were in a city that he'din which he'd been persona non grata in for nearly two decades.

"According to this, the X-Files have just been reopened," she said slowly.

"Who are the agents in charge?" Ressler demanded.

"Same people you've just deconstructed," Aram said. "Fox Mulder and Dana Scully."

"You don't think that..…" Samar didn't think she could finish the sentence.

"No," ." Cooper wasn't buying it. "Based on everything Skinner told me, Mulder and Scully would just have soon as had a Blacklister as a patron, rather than someone like Reddington."

"Out of the Bureau for nearly fifteen years, and they just _happen_ to reappear the day after Reddington mentions them?"" Samar asked rhetorically. "You have to admit, it's a hell of a coincidence."

"Is it?" Liz countered. "Reddington told me about the X-Files. He didn't tell me a thing about any of the agents who worked on itthe division. If he knew they were back in the Bureau, he would've just led me to them. His methods are serpentine, but they're nowhere near this convoluted."

"Besides, they never trafficked in his level of work." Ressler said. "Doggett told me that Mulder and Scully worked on those files for seven years, and they were never were able to put names with theto people behind the crimes they were investigatinged. And this may have been the only division in the entire Bureau where looking into someone like Reddington would've been a priority."

If nothing else, Liz knew that Raymond Reddington's ties were deep and long. But in the three years she'd been working with him, she'd never heard him once even express an interest into looking into the supernatural. He'd mentioned aliens, but had been quick to laugh off the idea.

Then again, why would he put the Cigarette-Smoking Man, someone who trafficked in this very thing, on the Blacklist the name of someone who trafficked in this very thing?"

"We're overcomplicating things," she found herself saying. "Reddington wants us to look into a lead that will lead to the Blacklister. We've been led to two people who might know exactly where to find him. In every other case, we'd jump on it. Why are we hesitating now, when this time it goes right back to the FBI?"

They all took this under consideration for a few moments. Then Cooper walked over to the phone. "I'll put in a call to Walter Skinner right now," he told them. "I think that it's time for a little inter-departmentalgency cooperation."

"Good," Ressler told them. "Hopefully, we get some other name for this guy than just the Cigarette-Smoking Man."

"Who knows? Maybe the anti-tobacco lobby finally managed to shut him down," Aram tried, as he did so often, to make a joke.

"If he's still around, and as old as Reddington said," Liz told them, "something tells me that he may keep Big Tobacco working 'til the very end."

Only after she had said the words, did she realized that she didn't know until the end of what.


	3. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

Fox Mulder had never thrown anything away.

Part of it was given because of the way his near near-photographic memory worked. He'd always been able to make connections based on some of the most obscure findings possible. But in all the years he had worked on the X-Files - and that included a period when someone had practically burned the office to a crisp - he had always wanted to handle the minutiae that might somehow lead to connections.

When he and Scully had been forced to go on the run after that kangaroo court fourteen years ago, everything had been left behind. He was more interested in staying alive, being with the woman he loved, and possibly averting the colonization of our the planet by extra-terrestrial life.

For four years, they had been in hiding,. Living living the kind of lives thatof fugitives did. He had gotten rather good at it the year that he had disappeared, but Scully, who had family and had been forced to separated from them, it had been yet another sacrifice based on a future that had been full of them. A couple of times, he had honestly considered turning himself in, ifand only if they would offer Scully amnesty to Scully.

Then, in November of 2006, everything had changed. Using one of the remote channels that the Lone Gunmen had set up before they had died, he had received a very simple message from a backchannel from the man who had taken over their newspaper. It was short and to the point: "Manhunt has been officially called off."

He had suspected a trap. Then Mulder had considered the world that in which they were now living. The FBI was now focused almost entirely on terrorism. The military was in the middle of two operations that were draining manpower and public support. The man responsible for the conspiracy was 'presumed "presumed dead'dead". Even though he'd seen the helicopters fire missiles, Mulder wouldn't believe _that_ until he saw a dead body and took the pulse himself. The actual 'government' "government" had far more important things to worry about than a fugitive who had only killed one soldier, who had, after all, gotten better.

Of course, There there was, of course, the possibility that this was yet another in a long line of fake-outs, but honestly both he and Scully were tired of living false lives. Tired of being another group of people ignorant to what the government was doing to them.

Tired of trying to not think about what William was doing.

So, because Mulder had wanted Scully to be close to their family, they had moved back to Richmond. Scully had gone back into medicine— - pediatric oncology, of all things— - and Mulder, had gone back to feathering the nest. Five years on the run had given him very little clue idea as to what one man could do to stop the end of the world. He would try to make connections with the men and women he had met on the run— - most notably through the now now-adult Gibson Praise and the Navajo that he had been connecting with— - but as to actual ideas clues as to how to stop what was coming closer every day, he still had no clear idea.

Then the next January, Agents Whitney and Drummy had reached out to him. With the possible exception Exceptingof Alvin Kersh showing up and raising a parade in his honor, he couldn't have been more surprised. It was one thing to call off the manhunt, but to ask him and Scully for help on a case? If that wasn't the proof of the paranormal he'd been seeking all those years, Mulder would've been hard hard-pressed to figure out what else could be.

The fact that they had attempted to reach him through Scully was very telling, though. Even given everything that had happened, and no matter how much the agents in question claimed to admire him, he was still 'Spooky' "Spooky" Mulder. He was reminded of what Skinner had told him, before he had returned on that fateful trip to Oregon: "You could bring home a flying saucer, and have an alien shake hands with the President. The fact was, they just don't like you." Despite everything that had happened he had rejoined the meeting with Father Joe.

It had not taken a lot of effort to not to return to the FBI after the mess that case had turned into. It had nothing to do with nearly dying yet again, either. At that point, he had been crossing the border into middle age, with fifty now closer than forty. Did he really want to spend what little time he had left, risking his ass for an agency that had proven, yet _again_ , that it didn't give a shit about him? So, he and Scully had gone off to a tropical paradise, and tried to forget what was coming.

Then December 21, 2012 came and went. Much like many others who had suspected the actual apocalypse on that date, he was a little disappointed. If nothing else, it proved for the millionth time that he should never have trusted that black-lunged bastard. He knew that he should've been relieved that colonization had been yet another big lie, and that the human racehumanity was safe. Mulder could concentrate on the rest of his life, with Scully hopefully.

That resolved lasted until New Year's dayNew Year's Day, 2013. Then he realized that even though the final alien invasion had not happened, it didn't change the fact that he had failed. In every respect. He'd 'known' "known" about the truth for over a decade. The fact that the powers that be had no interest in hearing listening shouldn't have changed the fact that his efforts to try and save the world had been piss-poor. Granted, he had no resources, was on the run for most of the time, and had almost no one who was willing to listen to him, but the fact remained: Fox Mulder remained a piss piss-poor freedom fighter.

And the worst part was: he shouldn't have been. Distrust in any form of government or authority was at an all-time high. The world was willing to believe in just about any conspiracy theory that existed. If he'd just found a fairly fairly-decent mountain top, he might have been able to get the audience he wanted.

Then Tad O'Malley had shown up. Mulder had considered him just another in a long line of talking heads that had turned twenty-four hourtwenty-four-hour news media into a mountain of noise, making him more part of the problem then part of the solution. The fact that O'Malley had been offereding to _help_ him and Scully did nothing to change that opinion.

But here they were, back in the FBI. Skinner was supervising, promising to be their blockade against the nonsense that might arise. And O'Malley had disappeared. Another casualty in their struggle against the shadow government, or had too many sponsors just withdrawn funding?

Despite all that, two things hadn't changed. They were still in the basement of the FBI, and Mulder never threw anything away. The fact that the X-Files had been shuttered for thirteen years had proven little no obstacle to him. Over the fifteen years he had been in exile, he had started a new set of files, dealing with more concrete examples of what he was chasing. And he still had his journals, his handwritten records that he had kept since joining the Bureau, describing in detail everything he saw in that decade.

Besides (though he'd never had admitted it to anyone other than Scully), he'd grown to like the office. It represented some of his greatest triumphs as well as tragedies. He'd met the mother of his child in this room. And now, he was going to do what it took to make this place feel like home again.

"I'm not the kind of person who believes this shit, and I'm still not sure I'm believing it now," John Doggett was telling him. "They're actually letting you run the X-Files again."

"I've told you three separate times, Agent Doggett."

"And its still not registering." Doggett told him. "Same way you're offering me a job is impossible to believe."

"You pretty much flushed your career down the shitter to keep the X-Files alive," Mulder reminded him. "I can't get you the Director's chair back, but at least I can bring you in from the cold."

Doggett considered this. "You _do_ remember I consider that this alien stuff is a lot of crap." His tone of voice said he doubted Mulder's memory.

"This office has always needed somebody who was willing to be skeptical." Mulder countered. "Considering how open Scully's mind has become, we need somebody to fill that role."

"Are you ever going to call her by her first name?" Doggett asked, his tone as close to whimsy as it ever got.

"Only when I can't remember her last anymore," Mulder said cheerfully. "Which admittedly may be only a few years down the road. I couldn't remember where I left my car keys this morning."

"Somehow, I find that even harder to believe than alien abductions," Doggett told him. "Can you really get me out of Podunk?"

"Say the word and Skinner will sign the transfer order himself."

A pause on the other end. "You do remember how much of a picnic it wasn't the few times we worked together."

"Maybe we've mellowed in our old age." ," Mulder said.

"Maybe you have. Doing a shit detail has made me even harder to get along with." He sighed. "What the hell. Beats shielding a bunch of super geniuses in Silicon Valley."

Mulder blinked. "Say what?"

"Crazy idea Kersh had a few years back. Tell you about it when I see you next. Which I imagine will be sooner than I'd like."

"You'll always regret it, John," Mulder said with a smile crossing his face. Only part of that was because Doggett had accepted his otheroffer.

Because entering the office was his better half; the woman who was his significant other in every sense of the word save for the accepted one. Scully had turned fifty-one just a few weeks ago, but he could still see so much of the eager young rookie who had stepped into his office more than two decades earlier. He had made a lot of mistakes, and done more than a few things that he regretted over all the time they'd known each other, but he had never felt no guilt that they had been on this journey together, or that it was startinged up all over again.

"Doggett has signed on. Can I tell him that the rest of our barbershop quartet is reassembling?" he asked.

Scully gave a smile. "Monica probably required a lot less persuasion. Apparently, chasing serial killers in Boston isn't as exciting as you'd think it would be." She looked around. "You do know we're going to need a bigger office?"

"Scully, I promised, you'll get a desk this time around." Mulder assured her.

"It was pretty hard trying to have group meetings when -" she swallowed for a moment "there were only three of us in here. We'll probably we'll end up crawling over each other if we're all going to be in this together."

Scully had always been the logical one in this relationship. "You're not going to miss this place?"

"I lived half my life in this office," Scully reminded him. "I may not have enjoyed every moment of it, but there are far too many memories that are attached for me not to miss it." She took a looklooked at the poster that had been hanging there, in some one form or another, ever since she had been here. "You'd think they'd have discontinued that particular model by now."

"They had." The grin that had been playing across his face disappeared for a moment. "Jimmy Bond got it for me."

A sad memory, even though neither of them had been around for it. "I never saw it in the Gunmen's office."

"Byers had a copy. He never showed it to me." Mulder shook his head. "Apparently, he left it to both of us."

This was another sad moment of reflection among far too many. Scully tried to shake it off. "What are we going to be looking into first? And please tell me you haven't been trolling the Weekly World News."

"Skinner called half an hour ago. Bad news travels fast. Someone within the FBI wants our help on a consult. An Agent Robert Ressler said that he'd be bringing a guest."

Scully raised an eyebrow in that way that he'd always loved. "Anyone we know?"

"We've been out of the Bureau for fifteen years, Scully. Everybody who knew about our little division is either retired, dead, or on board already." Mulder reminded her. "But I must admit; I'm still at the age where I like surprises."

Just then, there was at the knock at the door. Scully spoke first. "Sorry. Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted."

A grin crossed Mulder's face again. "How long have you been waiting to say that?"

"At least twenty years."

Considering that Liz had effectively been drummed out of the Bureau in exchange for her freedom, the fact that she was walking in the front door of the Hoover Building little more than a month later would 've have raised eyebrows if the media hadn't moved on to the Presidential campaign a few days later. As it was, Liz felt that as if everybody in the building somehow not only knew, but and disapproved. And even though everybody's gaze was suitably neutral, Keene thought they all must consider her some kind ofa traitor, even as she put on her visitor's badge.

"What does AD Skinner know?" she asked as they had walked to the office.

"He doesn't know about the task Task force Force or anything else about what we've been working on the last three years," Ressler told her slowly. "But Skinner is neither a fool nor a bureaucrat. He knows about the manhunt; he knows about shadow conspiracies. He thinks that the only reason you're here is because you can shed light on something."

Liz almost laughed. "Reddington doesn't tell me anything unless he has too, and usually not even then. I didn't know the X-Files even existed when I was in the Bureau; they were a spook story. And this is about a man who he can't even give a name or a face to."

"Mulder can. Scully, too. According to Skinner, he was in their office all the time the first few years they were on the X-Files."

"So, he has connections here."

"He did. But then again, Skinner thought he'd been dead for the last fifteen years."

"How are we supposed to play this?"

"Try to be as honest as possible, but keep Reddington's name out of it." Ressler told Liz. "There's probably no surer way to guarantee he'll throw us out of his office."

It was then that Liz realized that they were in a part of the Bureau that probably not even the most devoted agents would be willing to come to. "Mulder spent more than a decade in a the Bureau. You'd think he'd rate a little more room than this," she couldn't help but say.

"I thought so, too." Ressler had an eyebrow raised. "According to Skinner, Mulder requested it."

Considering that the FBI badge had been at least fifteen years out of date when she had seen it, and all that had happened in the years between, Fox Mulder looked damn good. There were definitely more lines on his face then there had been, and his hair had a small smattering of gray, but Elizabeth Keen could imagine he still turned heads even now.

Dana Scully looked even better, even though she had turned fifty-one just a couple of monthsfew weeks earlier. There were streaks of blond in her hair, which somehow seemed longer than it had been in the pictures. But somehow, Liz thought that the last thing either of these agents cared about was how they looked to the opposite sex.

"It's an honor to meet you," Ressler told them as he shook both of their hands.

"That's interesting, because I get that none of the time," Mulder told them.

"So, who'd you piss off to learn about this detail?" Scully asked. Once again, the two exchanged a look that could only be a private joke.

Now came the tricky part. According to Cooper, Mulder and Scully had both been out of circulation for several years, and even when they'd been in the Bureau, they'd cared very little to learn about task forces like the one they in which Ressler and Liz were involved int. Cooper had gone to great lengths to avoid telling them about the that particular long-term project that Liz and Ressler were involved in.

However, Walter Skinner was a lifetime FBI man, and after more than a decade of being manipulating by higher forces, he had no intention of letting his favorite agents go in blind.

And until recently, Fox Mulder had had a lot of free time. on his hands, . and while iIn the past, he had spent it watching those movies than he had fervently denied he had, and now that he actually had someone to share it with, he watched a lot more of the news.

So As a result, he knew exactly who Elizabeth Keen was the moment she walked in the door. What Liz didn't know was that Mulder and Scully had spent so long hiding truths, keeping secrets, and often flat-out lying to the powers, that they could've could have won fortunes at the World Series of Poker. While Ressler was giving them their cover story, he spent a long time pretending not to look at Liz at all.

"You believe in poaching?" he said all at once.

Liz had gotten used to non-sequiteurssequiturs from three years with Reddington, but this was odd even for her. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You know, the illegal hunting of wildlife. Lions, bears, elephants?" Mulder still wasn't looking at her.

"I think the people who do it are criminals. And they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." Ressler said, apparently taking this more in stride than she was.

"That's a shame." Mulder told her. "Because the minute you entered the room, a huge elephant came in, and because this is a really very small office, I want to kill it before we all suffocate." Now he turned to Liz, and fixed a glare on her. "Did you really shoot him?"

Liz had spent the better part of three years keeping up a poker face of her own that had gotten her into a lot of doors. She thought she could resist even a man who had been one of the greatest profilers out of Quantico. What she hadn't taken into consideration was the fact that Fox Mulder had spent ten years staring down liver-eating mutants, demons in human form, the shadow government, and the occasional alien. So even though she'd spent three months on the run, and was determined to retain her position in front of anybody, for the first time in a long time, she actually considering considered confessing. It passed in less than five seconds, but it was the first instant of doubt in a very long time.

"I was cleared of all charges by the Justice Department," she said instead.

"And the Warren Commission said conclusively that Oswald acted alone," Mulder riposted. "I didn't take much stock in what the government said _before_ I joined the FBI. Besides, that's not what I asked you, Mrs. Keen."

"This has nothing to do with why we're here," Ressler tried to intervene.

"I'm pretty sure it does. And I'm pretty sure Mrs. Keen is capable of speaking for herself." Mulder got very solemn. "So, unless you want me to throw your asses out of my our office, answer the goddamn question."

From what Ressler had told her, Scully had always been the one who was more diplomatic of the two. Liz had expected her to intervene out of civility, reason, or hell, she would've settled for female solidarity. Scully, however, was saying nothing.

"You have no right to be this hostile— -" Ressler started again.

"Yes, I shot him." Liz found herself saying, cutting off her partner's defense of her.

Mulder's next question was even more bizarre than his first one. "Did he deserve it?"

That, by comparison, was an easy one. "Absolutely."

Mulder considered this. "You must really have friends in high places, Mrs. Keen. I killed one soldier—- which I couldn't have done, by the way— - and for my troubles was imprisoned by the military, tortured, put on trial, sentenced to death, had to escape from prison, and was hunted by the Feds for four years. You are seen shooting the Attorney General in cold blood, and here we are, not four months later, and you're walking right into the FBI."

There was so much intel in all this that Liz Keen wasn't sure how to respond. Ressler, however, seemed to have focused on the key difference. "Why couldn't you have killed him?"

"Because he was an alien-human replacement who was impervious to the usual methods of being killed." ," Scully said simply. "He got killed three times before Mulder got to him, and we're still not sure if any of them stuck."

It was one thing to be told that Mulder and Scully investigated alien conspiracies; it was quite another to hear it being discussed as if Scully was talking about the relative humidity. For several long seconds, both Liz and Ressler were dumbstruck.

"You've got to be shitting me, " Scully told them, incredulous now. "Somehow, yYou found your way down to this office somehow, and you really didn't know what we investigated."

It was a statement, not a question. "I'd heard rumors, of course," Ressler said slowly. "But honestly, given what John Doggett told me—-"

"Yeah, John has had a hard time believing any of this stuff, too," Mulder told them slowly. "I imagine he still doesn't, and he ran this office for a year and a half."

Liz was instantly trying to figure out if Reddington really believed any of this. It was hard trying to figure out how omniscient Reddington really was, but in all the time she'd known him, he'd seemed to be a realist.

"So if you didn't know what our office did, why did you go to all this trouble to see what we wanted to know?" Mulder replied. "It's not like I'm hiding Hoffa's corpse down here."

Ressler decided to try and regain some level of control. "We were given to understand that one of the main things you investigated were government conspiracies," he said slowly.

Both Mulder and Scully maintained their poker faces, but Liz could tell that both were trying very hard to restrain laughter, of all things. "You might say that's a certain part of the job description," Scully said slowly, trying very hard to keep amusement out of her voice.

"Well, that's a large part of what we do in our task force." Ressler told them. "And it seems that an individual has come up who we were told was part of your work."

All laughter suddenly drained out of Mulder and Scully's faces. "What's their name?" Mulder asked.

No time like the present. "He's referred to as the Cigarette-Smoking Man."

A bizarre combination of expressions went through Mulder's and Scully's faces. Anger was there. , Despair despair was present, and what seemed to be resignation made an appearance, too.

Scully spoke first. "The man is dead."

"We've thought that before, Scully," Mulder countered.

"No one could've survived that blast, Mulder."

"No one could have lost as much blood as he did, and still lived," Mulder reminded her.

"He has to be ninety by now, Mulder. I don't care how close he is to being the devil—, no one survives that kind of cataclysm and still lives."

"I was in the ground for three months, Scully." Mulder said grimly. By now, it was clear they'd forgotten she Liz and Ressler were in the room. "And its not like we haven't seen this kind of thing before."

Whatever pretense they had at subtlety was gone, and they clearly had the answer to their question. Which brought them to their next obstacle. "I'm guessing that you know who he is," Ressler told them.

"Evil incarnate. The devil himself. And quite possibly my father." Mulder said matter-of-factly. "I never did get a clear answer on that last one."

Why did Reddington always give them so little to go on? "I'm assuming you thought he was dead."

"I should've known better," Mulder get resignedly. "You can't kill the devil, no matter how hard you try. Now, how do you know who he is?"

Their task force had to stay secret, no matter how many times it blew up. And at this point, it was pretty clear that Mulder and Scully knew who their highly highly-placed source was. Nevertheless, it was pretty clear that the second they told Mulder, he would raise sixteen types of holy hell. Best to proceed with caution.

"His name is on a list." Keene told them. "One that a very high high-level informant told us about. He also told us that your— - or more precisely, your division would be able to tell us all we needed to know. You would be doing us a great service if you tell us whatever you have on him."

Scully and Mulder considered this for a few moments. Scully opened her mouth first, but before she could say anything, Mulder interjected: "Absolutely not."

Scully was clearly taken aback by this. So were Ressler and Liz. "Agent Mulder, I think there's a way you can get the answers you've been seeking—-" Ressler started.

"As long as you get yours first." Mulder didn't even give him the chance to finish. "I've been in this position many times before. Long before you were even considering a career in law enforcement. I've been manipulated by the higher-ups and lower downs so many times, I lost count decades ago. So, unless you're willing to be a lot more candid, we're not going to give you a fucking thing."

This wasn't in the script. Almost every time Reddington had directed them to a source, the people involved had been willing, if not exactly eager, to help. Given what she had read in Mulder's file about seeking the truth with a capital T, she had figured all they'd have to do was mention the Smoking Man's name. Liz decided to try and play another card in her hand.

"Our source knows about the abductions."

That didn't even get a blink out of Mulder. Scully, however, reacted. "What kind of abductions?"

"The train cars, the biological experiments, the systematic killing of thousands of people." ," Keene told them. "According to our source, they've started again."

Scully was clearly angered by this news, though she was trying very hard not to show it. "How is that possible? The men responsible for those experiments were all killed?"!"

"Apparently not."

Scully looked at her partner. "Mulder, if this is true—-"

"It probably is. But if that's all you know, it's clear your 'highly- placed source' hasn't even given you a fraction of the story." ," Mulder told hersaid, directing the words had Ressler and Liz. "Which means you know less than we do. Which means you need our help more than we need yours."

And because this was incredibly true, Liz wasn't exactly certain what else to say to convince him. "Thousands of lives are being lost, Agent Mulder."

"Millions of lives _were_ lost, _Mrs._ Keen. If people had been willing to listen to me then, those lives might have been saved." Mulder was speaking so bluntly, Liz had no doubt it was the truth. "I've had answers for years, but no one's ever given a goddamn about what I had to say. And the few people who said they wanted to help, were part of the same corrupt system. Many of them have even worked in this building. So you'll forgive me if I don't jump at the chance to blindly dive down another rabbit hole."

She Liz and Ressler had known the dry rot was deep. So did Ressler. A But a warning that Mulder had been so protective of his work would 've have been nice to have. For the first time in her life, she really hoped that Reddington had been telling the truth when he said that he hadn't known anything about the X-Files being active.

"What would it take to get you to believe us?" Ressler clearly wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"Who's your source?" Scully demanded.

It was pretty clear from From the way both agents were talking, that they had pretty good idea who that source was. In essence, they They were essentially calling Liz's and Ressler's bluff. And considering that neither knew exactly what Reddington's knowledge was, they held all the cards.

"We're not allowed to release that information," Ressler said slowly. "But I believe we could arrange a meeting."

"On his terms, no doubt." Mulder said dryly. "Like I said, I'm way too old to arrange for clandestine meetings in ill-lit garages. If your source is serious about this, he will meet on _my_ terms. And in case you've forgotten, the FBI doesn't negotiate with terrorists, now matter how well meaning they may seem to be."

 _They know. No question._ "We can relay a message," Liz cautiously ventured.

"You can tell him that Scully and I will be waiting outside the Washington Monument at high noon tomorrow." Mulder said calmly. "Since I don't know who your informant _is,_ you will accompany him." He stared at Liz so hotly, it made his earlier glare look like one of affection. "I don't trust you" he barely glanced at Ressler, "too Marine. We'll be there for exactly one hour; you show up at 1:01, we're gone. We see anybody who even looks like their they're support of some kind of support, we will be gone."

Ressler didn't like this at all. "We're in the FBI."

"So were a lot of people we trusted, and they lied to our faces." Scully said just as coolly. "Mrs. Keen isn't in the Bureau any more. And somehow she's still part of your task force."

"So why me?" Liz asked

"Because the Bureau was hunting you down for three months," Mulder said bluntly. "That gets you a pass. I tend to trust people who the government wants to hunt down." He looked at her hard. "But I don't trust them for long.

"Convey this to your source. And tell him if he ever wants to see what I have on that chain-smoking son of a bitch, he'll do what I want."

"Our source can't meet in public." ," Ressler tried to say.

"You trying to make me see red?"

 _Now he's baiting us,_ Liz thought. _I'd hate to have been against him in his fighting years._

"I have a feeling if he wants to make this meeting happen," Mulder continued, "he'll find a way. Or he'll never get access to the X-Files."

There was no way around this. They had to take this to Reddington, and find a way for the FBI's most wanted man to appear in D.C., at its most most-trafficked landmark. "We'll get back to you," was all Ressler could say.

"High noon. Tomorrow." Mulder was intractable. Scully seemed just as firm.

As they were leaving, Mulder said one more thing: "You were on the run for three months," he asked.

"Yes."

"Dead or alive."

"Yes."

"Government has sure lowered their standards in the years I was out of the Bureau."

The moment Keen and Ressler were out of the office, Scully whirled on him. "Mulder, are you sure that was the right play?"

"You do know that was Elizabeth Keen, known associate of Raymond Reddington?" Mulder reminded her. "He's the guy who gave her the intel. I may have been MIA from the FBI for fifteen years, but even I know better than to hand over our files to people someone on our most Most Wanted list."

Mulder was acting rationally. _Someone should make sure hell hadn't hasn't frozen over._ "Then why not throw them out of our office the minute you knew who they were?" she asked.

"I wanted to know what they came for. Now I do." A lot of the surety left Mulder. "I just can't believe the sonofabitch is still breathing. We saw him get barbecued."

"It has to be a lie of some kind, Mulder. A way for Reddington to find something he needs in the X-Files."

"I think you're right, Scully."

 _Hitler must be ice skating by now._

"But come on, if he's really got a pathway into the Bureau, there have to have been easier ways. We need to know what he knows."

Up came the eyebrow. "Mulder, I may not know those files backwards and forwards, but I'm pretty sure I'd know if Reddington was in them."

"They've been inactive for fourteen years. If Reddington was telling the truth, maybe they've started into business since then." ," Mulder reminded her. "And who knows? Maybe he's a zombie. They do seem to be more popular these days."

"Probably warm his blood up some," Scully muttered. "Are you serious about us going through with this meeting?"

"I am. But there's no way in hell Reddington will." Mulder Mulder's aid tone was dryly. "I want to see what Keen and Ressler do when he doesn't. "

"And on the off-chance he _does_ show?" Scully asked.

"Last I checked, the reward was ten million dollars. You could finally pay off your med med-school loans." Off Scully's reaction: "We're also going to call Skinner. See how many chits we now have with the Bureau."

"You're not thinking of cashing them _all_ in for Reddington, are you?

"Figure if we get him, we'll have some more."

"He's not going to go along with this. Not unless he can control everything." ," Ressler told Keen as soon as they were out of the Bureau.

"He wants whatever's in those files. Short of using a truckliftforklift, I don't see any other way that we can get them," Keen reminded him. "Reddington has to have known that, even if he didn't know that Mulder and Scully were back in the Bureau."

"He doesn't respond to threats, you know that better than anyone. He's not going to take this well."

Liz's cell rang. The caller was UNKNOWN, but by this point, Keen knew better than to think this was happening by chance. "Yes?"

"How did your visit back to the Bureau go?" Reddington saidasked.

"Did you know that the X-Files had been reopened?" Liz said with just as little introduction. "Or that Mulder and Scully had been reassigned to them?"

There was a three-second pause— - an eternity by Reddington's standards. "This may come as a shock to you, Elizabeth, but there are limits to my knowledge. I knew the manhunt for Agent Mulder had been called off, I knew that Agent Scully was working in children's oncology, and that Fox Mulder was now writing books, but I didn't think there was even a snowflake's chance in hell that the FBI would let them back in."

"Yeah, and they weren't wild about the company I keep." Liz gave him a summary of what had happened.

"Mulder always did have a flare from for the dramatic," ." A trace of humor appeared in Reddington's voice. "Well, this does make things a tad more difficult."

"How do we play this?" Keene asked.

"Mulder was many things in his first stint in the Bureau, but no one would ever accuse him of being a fool." ," Reddington admitted. "With the exception of Agent Scully, That that file cabinet means more to him than anything, with the exception of Agent Scully. And she was more than willing to piss away her career for him. Subterfuge won't work. So we'll have to be direct."

Liz wasn't sure she was hearing right. "You plan to make this meeting."

"Of course. But not the way Agent Mulder expects it will."


End file.
